dache.ch

For the dacheboard, I thought it would be both interesting and useful to communicate the stages of my design process from start to finish.

I have taken the example of Brokers, a reality contest for finance college students, based in Mexico involving a stock market simulation.

When I was contacted by the makers of Brokers, it was sold to me as a very innovative and fresh take on motivating students.

I firstly discussed the project with the client in order to gain a more solid idea of which direction they wanted me to go with this. The results were along the lines of…

What product does Brokers offer?
The contest itself consists of teams of 5 members who receive a virtual portfolio of US$1 million which they use to place trades on the Mexican Stock Market and Foreign Exchange Market, with the aim of making the most virtual money. The winning team wins a scholarship and a cash prize of US$30,000.

How long have they been in business?
The contest was created four years ago and runs annually.

Principal message to be portrayed by the new logo?
A fresh, impacting brand style but still giving a professional image of the event.

Audience?
College students, Stock Brokers, Finance Product Sponsors and Banks.

Any specific images to include?
Anything related to the stock market with a modern twist.

From this information I was able to discuss further with the client and establish my initial ideas.

I focused on possible images to portray the event and many options were considered. After several ideas, I decided to present a dollar sign incorporated into the word Brokers as the initial concept.

This inital concept was within the brief given, giving a simple, fresh portrayal of the virtual stock exchange contest. The faded dollar sign was to effect the virtualness of the money being played with. This concept was considered but rejected by the client, as they did not want the event to have the appeal of just money. They wanted to focus rather on the actual trading aspects.

I then set to work researching investment terms and tools used in the world stock exchanges. The main possibilities which I could work with for a logo were the concepts of ‘bear market’ and ‘bull market’, conveying the weak and strong trends in the trading markets. Due to the nature of the event, I felt a preference for the bull image to be incorporated into the logo, to communicate the strong competitiveness of the contest.

I drafted various versions of bull sketches and tried both full physique and linear options. I settled on a linear aspect.

Although not a direct inspiration, I am a huge fan of the works of Pable Picasso. In his sketch of a bull below, he manages to combine both the full physique and the simple lines. Strangely, the combination is, in my opinion what makes it work, as it is the lines which give the body a 3-D perspective.

The above work was what I kept in mind when focusing on the developmennt of the Brokers bull style logo.

The below sketches were my inital ideas. I was trying to get the image of a charging bull, again to keep the impression of strength, using overlapping lines. It was not correct at this stage and the proportions needed re-working.

I transferred my sketching to graph paper in order to aid this proportional work.

After various attempts on the graph paper, I came up with the correct proportions and found that by lifting the front of the bull, gave the correct charging posture, as opposed to head to the ground, as would be expected.

Once I had decided on this point, I re-drafted, tidied up and transferred to the Dot Grid Book with its light geometric dot matrix serving as a subtle guide for sketches.

This dot grid image was then scanned into the computer, as below, in order for me to alter and achieve the final touches using the software.

Using Adobe Illustrator, I was able to clean up the curves and add the correct details, such as sharp and curved corners on certain parts of the concept to define the parts of the body.

As the image was of an organic organism, the softer edges around the head and legs were essential, whilst the sharp corners were kept on the most aggressive elements of the bull to keep the mark dynamic

Within the brief for Brokers, they wanted the actual wording included within the logo as well as the tagline ‘Making Money’. The selection of the correct typeface therefore was paramount. If the incorrect font was chosen, it could portray the charging bull in completely the wrong way.

Serif was the typeface which was presented to the client, as I thought that the classic elegance would give the long standing competition the correct feel.

The client chose the Stone Informal typeface created by Sumner Stone fairly instantly when presented with a selection.

After seeing the final presentations, the client commented as follows:

‘A big thank you to dache, who was able to capture the essence of our contest in a simple, elegant and striking logo. In financial companies, the bull is a widespread concept used in their logos however, Dave has successfully achieved a unique touch to our new logo without losing the message.’

It was a pleasure working with you, Sinue. Thanks very much for the testimonial and I wish you all the best with Brokers.

I’d love to know your take on the Brokers logo and hope that you have found this to be an interesting article.